Boost your blog traffic and reach your audience. It is a widely known fact that 95% of blogs fail; due to lack of readership.

In this article, I am going to show you how to become part of the 5% that don’t fail.

I have designed, written, and managed blogs with upwards of 500,000 monthly visitors, and I have tried and tested every method on the web. So there is no quick fix and it will take a bit of time. But at the very least by the end of this article you will have the know how to get there.

Consequently if you join my email subscribers list I will make sure you will be one of the first to know about the latest ways to keep ahead of the pack.

Let’s begin with this comprehensive, all you have know guide on 30 ways to boost your blog traffic

Boost your Blog Traffic: 30 of the best tips to reach your audience:
1/ The More Articles the better
2/ Boost your blog traffic with increased Content Length:
3/ Grow an Email List
4/ Optimise Your Blog for Search Engines
5/ Guest Blogging
6/ Leave Comments on Other Blogs
7/ Join a Blogger Club
8/ Do “Expert Roundups” and Get Featured Experts to Share
9/ Do Case Studies of Influencers and Get them to Share
10/ Feature or Interview Owners & Influencers of Popular Social Media Groups
11/ Interview Owners of Popular Forums
12/ Blogging Contests
13/ Develop and Execute a Social Media Strategy
14/ Content Syndication to Top Blogs
15/ Cross-Promote with Other Bloggers
16/ Use Blogging Communities
17/ Top Forums in Your Niche to promote your blog
18/ Become a reference in your field: write a blog thesis or Advanced Guide
19/ Social Share Buttons on Your Blog
20/ Infographics a very powerful arm to get shares
21/ Publish Slides to Slideshare and drive traffic to your site
22/ Facebook Groups
23/ LinkedIn Groups for traffic
24/ Promote Your Blog on Quora
25/ Use Reddit marketing
26/ Facebook Marketing
27/ Stumbleupon Marketing
28/ Fewer Share Buttons more visits
29/ Advertise your Blog on Pinterest
30/ Update Old Posts

P.S.  By the way you don’t have to use every one of the the recommendations. In conclusion: Play to your strengths and use the ones you are more comfortable with and that you can fit into your timetable.

 1/ The More Articles the Better

An especially relevant, and one of the most effective, but often ignored, ways to get traffic to a blog is by publishing more articles. Research from MOZ has shown that businesses that publish 2 posts a week get three times as many leads than businesses that publish one post a week.

According to the leading blog lifewire.com the more blogs the faster you grow.

It seems like that it really boils down to what your goal is and what resources you have. While research has shown that publishing more content will always lead to an increase in traffic for you, people tend to ignore this.

CAVEAT. Hence publishing for the sake of publishing is counterproductive. It’s called Spamming. “One good article is better than one hundred bad ones”.

2/ Boost your Blog Traffic with Increased Content Length

Also it used to be that plugins like yoast would recommend content on a post of more than 300 words. However the reality is 3000 words or more. For a while it was possible to be top of the searches on Google and other search engines with longer, more comprehensive, articles of 1000 words. Research by serpIQ that analysed top 10 results for over 20,000 keywords came to the conclusion that Google ranked content that had more than 2,000 words better than content with fewer words.

More Recent Research by Buzzsumo, in a partnership with Moz, found that articles that are 3,000 – 10,000 words get twice as many shares and 3 times the links content than those with fewer than 1,000 words would get. In addition the screenshot below shows the average shares and links that analysed articles got based on their word count.

According to BufferRapp .com and consequently, longer articles not only affects Ranking in searches but also social shares.

3/ Grow an Email List

Ask most successful bloggers what the top source of traffic to their blog is and they’ll tell you that email is in the top 3. According to  Corey Dilley Marketing Manager at Unbounce

“Unbounce’s email list is the biggest asset we have for driving new acquisitions. Why? Email marketing consistently generates 80-90% of our landing page traffic when we launch a new campaign, piece of content or product feature. Email allows us to engage our audience in a creative, personalised way that blog posts or tweets can’t.

As a result, I recommend you install Thrive lead plugin to grow a big email list and then use Mail chimp to run it. These are both easy options to use and if you subscribe I will walk you through: how to install and optimise your most valuable blogging tools.

[clickToTweet tweet=”A step-by-step guide to the 30 best ways to radically boost traffic to your blog. Increase visitors to your website using these tried and tested methods. Don’t be among the 95% of bloggers that give up because nobody finds their brilliant posts.” quote=”A step-by-step guide to the 30 best ways to radically boost traffic to your blog. Increase visitors to your website using these tried and tested methods. Don’t be among the 95% of bloggers that give up because nobody finds their brilliant posts.”]

4/ Optimise Your Blog for Search Engines

On Page Optimisation is key as search engines are the number one source of traffic for most established blogs. Just 80% of traffic comes from search engines. So prepare your page with 15 musts for on page optimisation or just get the brilliant Squirrly plugin which will make sure your page is optimised.

Top Traffic Sources to ProBlogger:

1. google / organic – 42.89%
2. (direct) / (none) – 17.59%
3. google.com / referral – 5.10%
4. stumbleupon.com / referral – 2.54%
5. yahoo / organic – 2.05%
6. twitter.com / referral – 1.87%

Consequently it is important that you don’t ignore SEO. Most noteworthy: Familiarise yourself with the concept of SEO and optimise your blog and your articles to rank well for relevant keywords in Google and other search engines.

5/ Guest Blogging

One of the fastest ways to grow your blog is by writing for other people’s blogs. In other words, you can look for a blog that is much bigger than yours and write an article for that blog. You can add a bio that includes a link to your site in the guest post you write. This can result in a lot of traffic for you.

How to look for guest blogging opportunities:

First of all find your niche then go to Google which is a great place to start in the search for guest posting opportunities. You can use any of the following keyword searches to find blogs that accept guest posts. Just replace keyword with keywords from your industry:

• “submit a guest post”
• “guest post”
• “guest post by”
• “accepting guest posts”
• “guest post guidelines”

TOP TIP

In conclusion guest blog on blogs that are more popular than your own. Look for blogs with many thousands of subscribers and then submit your guest post.

How to Find Blogs for Commenting Using Google Alerts

6/ Leave Comments on Other Blogs

An appropriate comment on a highly authoritative blog can consequently drive lots of traffic to your blog. Therefore identify the top blogs in your niche and start interacting and commenting on blogs on a regular basis. This will get the blogger and members of his community to notice you and visit your blog.

7/ Join a Blogger Club

So compile a list of dozens of relevant bloggers that you can email your article to and ask them to share or link to your article. Most of all: The blogger out reach article explains everything you have to know.

Feature Other Bloggers in Your Articles and Ask them to Share:

“You scratch my back and I will scratch yours”. A popular technique used by the famous blogger Neil Patel to grow his blog is that of linking to dozens of bloggers inside his articles and then informing them that he linked to them. The result is lots of shares per article and eventually lots of traffic directed back to him.

Regularly link to other bloggers in your articles and email all of them to let them know about your article; many of them will share your article, resulting in lots of traffic for you.

8/ Do “Expert Roundups” and Get Featured Experts to Share

An expert roundup is a type of blog post that features contributions by a number of different experts. Typically the host blogger will provide a compelling question or a topic for discussion and reach out to various experts to give their point of view and answer the question.

As a result you can massively boost your blog traffic. Once you have published your expert roundup, ask all the bloggers featured to mention it in their blogs and emails.

A good example of an expert roundup by:

How to Start a Successful Blog – 82 Experts Share Their Best Blog Tips

9/ Do Case Studies of Influencers and Get them to Share

In conclusion: Identify influencers in your niche with good reach, do a case study about these influencers and get them to share it.

Case studies drive traffic because they:

1.  are very niche specific
2. focus on your audiences problems
3. display the process
4. enable your site to stand out as an authority
5.  presentations are modular and manageable
6. content can be easy to create

The case study template: how you could structure your case studies:

First of all: The Question or Problem:

The first part of your case study needs to explain what the problem you are going to solve is. For example, if you were focussed on the grow your own niche. Your problem could be “Comments spamming” a common problem when starting a blog. You would of course pad this out with your story. Explain that you’ve just started blogging and so on… You could even do this case study as an answer to a reader’s question who contacted you.

Finally: The Potential Solutions:

You then need to explain the potential solutions you could employ solving the issues, three or four will do. You will be amazed at the traffic you will attract.  follow these guidelines

10/ Feature or Interview Owners & Influencers of Popular Social Media Groups

Also appeal to the good nature of the person. Don’t be too clever either. There are several Facebook and LinkedIn groups with thousands and tens of thousands of followers. Unfortunately, most bloggers try to get traffic by spamming these social media groups, only to have their articles removed. Instead, a better way to get traffic from social media groups, is to interview owners, or influencers, of these groups and ask them to share the article you feature them in. Even if they do not share your article, just join the group and share it.

11/ Interview Owners of Popular Forums

If possible, ask them to participate in a roundup post on your blog then send them a link to your article has been published and ask them to share it.

12/ Blogging Contests

In addition: Run your own blogging contest and make it a condition that participants share your article on social media or subscribe to your blog. This will go a long way to boost your blog’s reach.

13/ Develop and Execute a Social Media Strategy

Simply creating social media profiles and sharing your latest articles is no longer enough.

While just a few years ago, it was possible to get away with building a social media marketing strategy going on instinct. The logic was, as long as you were present, you were doing more than your competitors.

However 2018 has seen a number of changes. With 30% of young people saying they engage with a brand on social on a monthly basis, your strategy can’t be only about existence. Brands must fully invest in their social media marketing strategies and focus on engagement. Otherwise, you’ll lose out on customers, which means serious effects on your blog income.

So developing a social media strategy means focusing only on key social networks, engaging with influencers and top pages, and, interacting in groups to grow your social media reach. Also, make sure you constantly post updates, and regularly recycle old articles on social media. Simply sharing your article once, or once in a while, will not be enough.

It seems like most popular bloggers share links to old articles on their blog for years. These are called evergreen or renewable content. Posting frequency should vary depending on the social media site. The highly reputable bufferapp maintains that it is optimal to post twice daily on Facebook, thrice daily on Twitter and Google and 5 times daily on Pinterest.

14/ Content Syndication to Top Blogs

Top blogs and networks will let you to republish your content on their site and credit back to you.

Big blogs, like Business Insider and Huffington Post, will do it if they feel that your content is good enough.

Look for a list of publications and network sites in your niche that republish content and contact them.

15/ Cross-Promote with Other Bloggers

So look for a blogger with a similar audience to yours and see if you can do a “shout out exchange”. In other words, you mention them on your blog and they mention you on theirs. You can also promote them to your email list while they promote you to theirs which is slightly more delicate.

16/ Use Blogging Communities

They have existed for a long time and are a good place to get traffic. Maybe some of the most notable examples:

BLOGGING COMMUNITIES  LINK

1.  BlogEngage Join Now

2. DoSplash Join Now

3. Inbound.OrgJoin Now

4. BizSugar Join Now

5. Klinkk Join Now

6. Kingged Join Now

7. BlokubeJoin Now

8. Triberr  Join Now

9. IndiBlogger Join Now

As a result look for a blogging community in your niche that you can share interesting articles with and occasionally submit your articles.

17/ Top Forums in Your Niche to promote your blog

Forums can also be a good source of traffic and many of the top ones in your niche probably get millions of monthly visitors not counting the fact that many have hundreds of thousands of members.

In addition start by making valuable contributions to the forum in the form of ideas, responding and taking part in other people’s discussions. Do not forget to have a link to your blog in your forum signature, and you’ll notice a net increase in your traffic.

18/ Become a reference in your field: write a blog thesis or Advanced Guide

It is fairly standard to see an ultimate guide that is 5,000 – 10,000 words.

As we already mentioned earlier in this article, search engines prefer comprehensive articles and rank them better; as do people, so they’ll share them. So publishing an ultimate guide will build your audience but also enhance your reputation as a reference in your niche.

Once again, after you’ve published your ultimate guide, reach out to bloggers in your niche and ask them to mention it to their followers.

19/ Social Share Buttons on Your Blog

Not just any social share buttons as I write this article Social warfare Wordpress plugin is attracting more social reaction than other less imaginative social media plugins.

Some bloggers fail to include social sharing buttons at all on their blogs and this is costing them dearly in social shares, exposure and traffic.

20/ Infographics a very powerful arm to get shares

People remember 10% of what they hear, 20% of what they read, 80% of what they see & do! 

Look at this Infographic by Julian Midwinter posted at Visually.

So what do you think? Does the data prove to you that you should be using images more?

21/ Publish Slides to Slideshare and drive traffic to your site

Over 70 million professionals use Slideshare, and it is one of the 100 most visited websites in the world. Hence it is easy to use and you can use it to drive traffic to your blog.

Read this blog how Slideshare got 2,000,000 views from 16 presentations

22/ Facebook Groups

Facebook groups can also be a good source of traffic and exposure for your blog why not join a group. I belong to a few FB groups and many of the blogger groups I belong to have daily, weekly or even monthly sharing threads, that allow you to share your blog post. Some of these groups have a lot of members, and they can be quite the powerful source of traffic to your blog. Furthermore don’t forget to use catchy text images as well as a compelling message that shows how people will benefit by reading your article.

In a case study analysing how he increased traffic to his site immensely by using Facebook groups, Brodie Clark stated that the best way to get traffic from Facebook groups isn’t just to post your links. Instead, make sure to use attractive text images as well as a compelling message that show people how they will benefit by reading your article.

23/ LinkedIn Groups for traffic

It’s a similar story to Facebook Groups according to kissmetrics. LinkedIn groups are rather a good source of traffic. As a result sharing your content with the top LinkedIn groups in your niche, join them and occasionally submit your best articles to them.

24/ Promote Your Blog on Quora

So how powerful is Quora for promoting your blog, and how to harness this force? Just READ THIS ARTICLE on Quora.

Within 6 months of starting a blog, you will already get loads of monthly views. Just contributing great value can be very active on Quora. Eventually, this will pay off in quality traffic and possibly lead to articles on your blog going viral.

25/ Use Reddit marketing

Reddit is one of the biggest online communities, with an estimated 17 million monthly users. It’s as effective as advertising on Facebook, Google Adwords and other PPC options surprisingly. Reddit’s has one of the lowest CPC’s at $0.70 CPM.

26/ Facebook Marketing

Same: Facebook is one of my favourite advertising platforms. Facebook helps you find your audience with laser targeting and less click fraud. Also, advertising on Facebook is 3 times cheaper than Google Ads.

27/ Stumbleupon Marketing

With over 25 million users, StumbleUpon is one of the web’s biggest community as well as one of the cheapest places to advertise online. In a case study on this stumbleupon blog, its blogger got 50,000 visitors to his blog by spending just $140.90.

28/ Fewer Share Buttons more visits

While we earlier noticed that including social sharing buttons on your blog can help increase traffic and social shares, too much of a good is bad. According to research done by webaholic too much choice can lead to paralysis.

29/ Advertise your Blog on Pinterest

Pinterest can also be a great source of traffic to your blog and many bloggers have leveraged it with a great source to massively boost their blog traffic. Advertising on Pinterest is already used in the USA, the UK, and France but will also be present in other countries. There are many success stories on pinterest business, which apply equally to blogs.

Quality and interesting images as well as irresistible headlines work.

30/ Update Old Posts

One of Google’s ranking factors is content freshness. Indeed one way to benefit from Google’s freshness algorithm is by constantly publishing more articles on your blog, while another way is by updating old articles.

Review articles you published months and years ago, eliminate outdated information and bring them up to date also. This will immediately impact your blog’s search rankings and bring you more traffic. There are ten very clear illustrations of this on this MOZ blog.